Today is the feast of the Presentation of Jesus in the Temple of Jerusalem or Temple of Solomon. The Presentation of Jesus at the Temple is the fourth Joyful Mystery of the Rosary. Pope John Paul II connected the feast day with the renewal of religious vows. All those renewal of religious vows made by his JP2 Army and all his squad of Rosary fanatics who pray the rosary everyday - could not defeat the JP2 Army – John Paul II Pedophile Priests Army named aptly after his longest reigning papacy where he said and did nothing to stop pedophile priests, read more here http://jp2m.blogspot.com/2011/10/rosary-could-not-defeat-jp2-army-john_06.html . Not once did John Paul II care to meet with one of the victims of the 80 pedophile priests whom Cardinal Bernard Law aided and abetted. John Paul II was too concern with religious vows and appointing red robe wearing Cardinals and Bishops and conducting religious ceremonies like the Pharisees and the Presentation of wealthy investors at the Vatican Bank. And with his narcissism to die as John Paul II the Great his death was possibly orchestrated – as euthanasia – to coincide with Divine Mercy Sunday, his favorite devotion, in 2007 we wrote this article about John Paul II’s convenient euthanasia, http://jp2m.blogspot.com/2007/09/john-paul-ii-euthanasia-his-last-papal.html

Why mention this euthanasia now? Because of one Cardinal's questionable death, Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua, who suddenly died a few days after Philadelphia Judge M. Teresa Sarmina ruled that the frail and ailing cleric was "competent" to appear and testify at the upcoming clergy abuse trials in March. Bevilacqua died in his sleep Tuesday night at his church residence near Philadelphia. That same day, his longtime secretary for clergy, Monsignor William Lynn, appeared in court for a pretrial hearing in his unprecedented criminal case.

Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua was like Cardinal Bernard Law of Boston who did exactly what the grand jury of Philadelphia overview of the cover-up concluded with this contemptuous assessment on his Cardinal pal - which all Cardinals have done really, Roger Mahony, et al:

"The abuses that Cardinal Bevilacqua and his aides allowed children to suffer - the molestations, the rapes, the lifelong shame and despair - did not result from failures or lapses, except of the moral variety. They were made possible by purposeful decisions, carefully implemented policies, and calculated indifference."

David Clohessy, the national president of SNAP (Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests), suggested that the former archbishop of Philadelphia was faking his illnesses...and he had good reasons to do so... and now the Opus Dei media is attacking him. Thank goodness for a mother's defesne on him, read news updates below Bevilacqua: Not a predator, but worse and other related articles

Philadelphia priests raped boys in church sacristies, stripped them nude and whipped them as part of a Passion Play, got them drunk and showed them pornography -- and remained on the job, the 2005 grand jury report said (Boston Globe).

And Cardinal Bernard Law remained in the job as Cardinal, thanks to the papal farts of John Paul II at us Bostonians after we forced Law to resign as Archbishop of Boston.

And Cardinal Bevilacqua also remained on the job. The prvilege of the Vatican as a "country" should be revoked as soon as possible because when the Vatican ceases to be a country, then all its archives would belong to the state of Italy and all their secret crimes against humanity will be revealed to the public and to the world. And most of all all those secret names of thousands of pedophile priests worldwide of the JP2 Army also known as B16 Army will also be made public.

In a few days, this February 18 at a colourful ceremony in Rome, Benedict XVI will elevate formally 22 new Cardinals who will do the same, feed the narcissistic beast of the Vatican and continue to rule with "carefully implemented policies, and calculated indifference" to the suffering of children. The hundreds of thousands of victims of the JP2 Army and their sufferings are crying out to Heaven worse than the Blood of Abel.

The Presentation of Jesus in the Temple, between 1886(1886) and 1894(1894)

When Jesus became an adult, Jesus cursed that same temple and predicted that not one among its pillars will be left standing. And it all came true. Jesus did not care about the wealth of Solomon and all the sapphires and diamonds that graced its walls. King Solomon was a polygamist who had 300 wives and that makes him worse than Warren Steed Jeffs, the polygamist leader of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints that has 10,000 followers, has 79 wives and nearly 60 children. And yet Benedict XVI with his Immoral Bible revere King Solomon as as the supposedly “wisest king”, read more here http://pope-ratz.blogspot.com/2010/12/benedict-xvi-and-bible.html.

So who cares about new 22 new Cardinals Benedict XVI recently appointed and Pellini the new head of the Vatican Press and the Holy See’s newspaper L’Osservatore Romano? The wealthy God-flesh eating Catholics do care, and therefore, they blindly support the Vatican no matter what evils Cardinal Ratzinger and John Paul II have done together for over 26 years. Hence Catholics are complicit with Benedict XVI and all his crimes against humanity, read OC Diocese buys Crystal Cathedral as flesh-factory of Christ... for wealthy God-flesh-eating Catholics http://popecrimes.blogspot.com/2011/11/oc-diocese-buys-crystal-cathedral-as.html .

Catholics are like the Israelites in the desert who decided to put together all their gold and jewelleries to build a Golden Cow to which they would sing and worship for their salvation instead of believing in the God who led them out of Egypt. Today Catholics also give all their wealth and sing and worship their Opus Dei Golden Cows, the Mythology of ‘Saint’ John Paul II and Benedict XVI and Bishop Finn instead of giving their money to Doctors without Borders or Red Cross who are immediately in sites of human disasters regardless of those people’s creed or race. Benedict XVI and those red robed Cardinals instead are living in the lap of luxury in their gilded palaces that rivals the royals of Europe and never dirty their hands to help those in need. Read Did Christ wear red slippers? read Benedict XVI and Jon Sobrino http://pope-ratz.blogspot.com/2007/08/benedict-xvi-vicar-of-christ-and-jon.html

These are the reasons why John Paul II is the fastest saint in history. John L.Allen Jr.Pied Piper of John Paul II deceives Catholics with his essay Fast-Track Saint in Newsweek -- with Vatican lunacy & Satanic timeline http://jp2army.blogspot.com/. Catholics are complicit to the crimes of Benedict XVI as they keep on buying into the Vatican’s strategy of deceptions and Vatican cinema theatrics by the Vatican Media Empire of Pied Pipers who will entice Catholics to go to Rome and attend the investitures of these 22 new Cardinals who will perpetuate the crimes against humanity of Benedict XVI.

Read Fr. James Martin's article below about the old non-voting Jesuit appointed among the new 22 new Cardinals by Benedict XVI -- and his fake enthusiasm. The fact is there will never be any new voting Jesuit Cardinal again because the last one was a contender against Cardinal Ratzinger in 2005, Jorge Mario Bergoglio, 68, Argentina. The last Cardinals appointed by John Paul II were also professor emeritus, Cardinal Dulles among them. The Opus Dei want to carry out the WORLD DOMINATION Agenda of their false saint Golden Cow Josemaria Escriva who want to obliterate the Jesuits because the Jesuits will never follow their Pharisee Opus Dei routine of praying the Rosary everyday, the Angelus 3 times a day and saying Mass in Latin. After all the Jesuits translated the Latin catechism into the vernacular.

Benedict appoints 22 new Cardinal thieves and oppressors and rapists of of women and children...GAY men dressed in red robes and red hats

So Benedict XVI in his almighty powers as Pope has appointed 22 new Cardinals who will have diplomatic immunity and will be the perfect conduit of despots' ill-gotten wealth therefore perpetuating the poverty of nations and the rape of women and children, read our related article: Mother Church and the rape of her children. Clerical culture is psycopathogenic. http://popecrimes.blogspot.com/2011/11/mother-church-and-rape-of-her-children.html

Cardinals are created to ensure the theocracy of the Vatican and the all-male domination of the Catholic Church: "All ecclesial power and authority is grounded and mediated exclusively by men—pope, cardinals, bishops and priests. They are automatically granted status and respect, even if not assent, in secular society." Even the 3 Persons of the Divine Trinity are all-male, read more here The GAY Trinity of Father, Son and Holy Spirit, three He’s, three homosexuals ! ! ! http://pope-ratz.blogspot.com/2010/12/gay-trinity-of-father-son-and-holy.html

The main task of Cardinals are to preserve the Vatican Billions and to entice as many more investors into the secret Vatican Swiss Banks. The purpose of red dressed GAY homosexual men is to hoard Mammon and serve Mammon by using God's name in vain. Cardinal Sodano helped the serial pedophile priest Fr. Marcial Maciel transfer 35 billion dollars into a Vatican Swiss Bank http://jp2m.blogspot.com/2011/04/fr-marcial-maciels-swiss-bank-accounts.html

Excerpt from Mother Church and the rape of her children. Clerical culture is psycopathogenic. The clergy sexual abuse crisis has underscored the American bishops’ maneuvers, fair or foul, to avoid scandal, maintain secrecy, and preserve financial assets.

Clerical Culture: Roman Catholic clergy live, breath and have their being in a culture that is distinct from secular social groups. Priests and bishops seem like ordinary men, but they operate in a unique reality. Roman Catholic clerical culture is male-dependent and male-dominated. It is a homosocial society in doctrine and operation. There is no other culture that equals it in this regard. Its theological structure is exclusively male: God the father, son Jesus Christ, and Holy Spirit are male realities.[13] All ecclesial power and authority is grounded and mediated exclusively by men—pope, cardinals, bishops and priests. They are automatically granted status and respect, even if not assent, in secular society. Despite the fact that nuns (and women) have formed the shock troops and standard bearers of the church their role as “authorities” is strictly limited. Priesthood is denied women.

Clerical culture is psycopathogenic. That means that the elements that constitute the operation of the celibate culture favor, select, produce, and promote men who tend to be what were formerly termed sociopaths. Nothing has exposed this core of the culture more clearly than the abuse of minors and the involvement of the most exalted members of the hierarchy who cover up for crimes.

=========Should People and Governments Shun the Totalitarian Catholic Church?

UNITED STATESAlterNet

January 5, 2012

David Morris

When a totalitarian regime aids and abets the rape of tens of thousands of children one would expect it to be shunned by governments and citizens alike. And any statements it might issue on matters of morality accorded no respect.

Why should we make an exception when the regime is the Catholic Church?

That the Roman Catholic Church is totalitarian is undeniable. Church law itself makes this clear. Canon 331 declares the Pope “the head of the college of bishops, the Vicar of Christ, and the pastor of the universal Church on earth. By virtue of his office he possesses supreme, full, immediate, and universal ordinary power in the Church, which he is always able to exercise freely.”

Canon 333 emphasizes the remarkable power this institution endows in one man, “No appeal or recourse is permitted against a sentence or decree of the Roman Pontiff.”

And whenever the Pope chooses he can issue decrees related to faith and morals that not only have the power of law but must be considered irrefutable, at least since 1870 when the Church declared the Pope “possessed of that infallibility with which the Divine Redeemer wished His Church to be endowed.”

The entire hierarchy of the Catholic Church is at the mercy of the Pope. He appoints bishops and can impose his directives on the lowliest priests and nun.

I hasten to note that the Church was not always totalitarian. The first Christian communities were remarkably democratic. For at least the first 100 years after Jesus Christ was killed, during the time Matthew and Luke and John and Mark wrote the Gospels, women (yes, women) as well as men directly elected church leaders. But that was before a new religion metastasized into the world’s most powerful, centralized and enduring institution.

That the Catholic Church is guilty of widespread rape is also undeniable. A few years ago there was a spate of news items when sexual abuse cases first surfaced in Boston and a few other cities. Media coverage since then has withered but the issue has not. Just the opposite. In 2011 allegations of sexual abuse of minors have spread to 26 countries. In just one case in the United States the Churchagreed to pay $250 million in compensation to about 700 abused males and females. The Netherlands has documented almost 2000 cases.

Following the publication in July of the fourth report since 2005 documenting sexual abuses by Catholic clergy in Ireland, its Minister for Children and Youth Affairs observed that the abuses described “would be horrifying if it were done to prisoners of war, never mind little boys and girls.” The Irish Prime Minister and parliament publicly denounced the Vatican for its culpability.

The human toll of decades of exploitation and predation can get lost in the fog of statistics but comes through clearly in individual stories. Like that of Katherine Mendez who related her horrifying account to Kimberly A.C. Wilson of the Oregonian last March. Katherine was “11 years old when she was raped at St. Mary’s Mission School in Omak, Washington moments after she scuffled with another student and was brought into the office of Father John J. Morse. The sexual abuse continued from the sixth grade into eighth grade she said. And even after Mendez left the school and moved in with a foster family in Selah, 200 milers away, the priest tracked her down to continue the abused. “Every day, every single day, it was a nightmare”, says Mendez. “I was always looking over my shoulder.”

In November the overwhelmingly Catholic country of Ireland took the extreme step of shutting its embassy in the Vatican. (The Vatican has been a state since 1929, when it was granted that status by Benito Mussolini in return for its support for his dictatorship. Comprising 110 acres, an area smaller than Washington’s National Mall, and 800 people Vatican City is by far the smallest nation in the world.)

Some might say that an institution, even a totalitarian institution, cannot be blamed for the actions of a small fraction of its members. But when stories of sexual abuse were first raised the Catholic Church ignored them. Later it often reassigned the rapacious priest to another parish where he might prey on other minors. The 2011 Irish report concluded the Church had informed its Bishops that reporting sexual abuses to the police violated Church law.

On September 13 the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) and members of the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests (SNAP) took the next step by asking the International Criminal Court (ICC) in the Hague to investigate and prosecute high level Vatican officials, including the Pope, for widespread and systematic rape and sexual violence against children and vulnerable adults by Catholic clergy.

The CCR accompanied its complaint with 22,000 pages of documentation. Pam Spees, staff attorney for CCR noted, “The magnitude, scope, and depth of harm are nearly unfathomable, especially when one considers that what we know at this point, shocking as it is, is likely the tip of the iceberg.”

Most of us view the ICC, established in 2002, as a prosecutor only of war crimes. But its mandate is broader–to prosecute crimes against humanity. And the ICC explicitly considers rape and sexual violence as crimes against humanity.

This election year the Roman Catholic Church will regularly pontificate on policy matters. And the media will report its views and actions as if they came endowed with a certain moral authority despite the fact that the Church itself has been found guilty of the most heinously immoral actions.

Indeed, the Catholic Church acts of if it believes that sex matters above anything else. It will not go to the mat to fight against poverty or injustice but it will pull out all the stops to prevent people of the same sex from marrying.

After Illinois legalized civil unions the Roman Catholic Bishops shuttered most of the state funded Catholic Charities rather than allow gay couples to avail themselves of its adoption services. This also occurred in Washington, D.C. and Massachusetts.

Better not to enable any adoptions, the Catholic Church insists, than allow the possibility of an adoption by a gay couple.

The most recent target of the Catholic Church is the provision of the health reform bill requiring employer health insurance plans cover contraception services without a co-pay. A few days before Christmas the United Conference of Catholic Bishops took out full page adsin The New York Times and The Washington Post urging Congress and the administration to change the mandate.

As Sarah Posner writes, “…this campaign will not essentially consist of clerics issuing recommendations. Staffed with ten of the Bishops’ brethren, the Ad Hoc Committee (on Religious Liberty) will be assisted by the USCCB’s (United States Conference of Catholic Bishops) former top lawyer and now Associate General Secretary, Anthony Picarello, who served on Obama’s first Advisory Council to his Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships. A staff lawyer and a lobbyist have also been hired and assigned to the effort.”

Testifying before the House Judiciary Committee Subcommittee on the Constitution last October, Bishop William E. Lori, chair of the Ad Hoc Committee, described LGBT equality and access to reproductive care as a disease that must be treated immediately, “lest the disease spread so quickly that the patient is overcome before the ultimate cure can be formulated and delivered.”

Which leads to the question, if the Catholic Church loses its battle to amend the health reform law will it close its hospitals as it shut down its Catholic Charity offices rather than pay for contraceptives? Stay tuned.

In late September HHS rejected an application by the Catholic Church for funding to continue to counsel sex trafficking victims because the Church refused to provide a full range of obstetric and gynecological care, including abortion and contraceptives.

Under prodding from the Church, the Republican House is investigating. Is it just me, or doesn’t it seem the height of effrontery for the Catholic Church, an institution found guilty of raping thousands of girls and boys to insist that it be allowed to withhold services to rape victims out of some sense of moral outrage?

David Morris is co-founder and vice president of the Institute for Local Self Reliance in Minneapolis, Minn., and director of its New Rules project.

Vatican City - Pope Benedict XVI on Friday named 22 new cardinals, with their official installation ceremony set for February 18.

They include prelates from New York, Berlin, Toronto, Prague and Kerala, India. Eighteen of the new cardinals are under the age of 80, which makes them eligible, for now, to take part in a conclave to elect a successor to the current pontiff. That right expires after their 80th birthday.

The Vatican website says Benedict XVI has appointed 84 cardinals since his election in 2005.

Included among the names of cardinal-designates this morning in the Vatican's press release are some expected names, including Archbishop Timothy Dolan of New York. But there is a surprise: Fr. Karl Joseph Becker, SJ. Fr. Becker is a German Jesuit priest and professor emeritus of dogmatic theology of the Jesuits' Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome. Normally the pope names (or, technically, "creates") cardinals from the ranks of bishops and archbishops (as with Archbishop Dolan) and these men are often heads of the larger archdioceses. But occasionally the pope names a priest, to honor the man for his life's work. (Normally they are over 80, not named a bishop so as to spare them from the sacramental duties of a bishop, and are ineligible to vote in a papal conclave.) Avery Cardinal Dulles, SJ, the American Jesuit theologian, was a recent example. (An interview with Cardinal Dulles a few months before the consistory, including his thoughts on becoming a cardinal, is here.)

A note about accepting ecclesiastical honors in the Society of Jesus. At the close of their formation, a Jesuit will make his "Final Vows." (This comes after their "First Vows" made at the end of their novitiate.) Many Jesuits will profess four vows: poverty, chastity and obedience and a special vow of obedience to the pope "with regard to missions." Some will profess the vows of poverty, chastity and obedience. We also make five separate "promises": First, we promise never to change anything in the Jesuit Constitutions about poverty--unless to make it "more strict." Second, we promise never to "strive or ambition" for any dignity in the church, like becoming a bishop. Third, never to "strive or ambition" for any high office in the Jesuits. Fourth, if we find out that someone is striving for these things, we are to "communicate his name" to the Society. (All these were signs of Ignatius wanting to root out among his Jesuits the desire for ecclesial honors, which was rampant in Igantius's time.) Finally, we make a promise that, if we are somehow made bishop, we will still listen to the superior general.

But there have been, over the years, several instances of Jesuits being named cardinals, most often for their work in theology. Indeed one of the great Jesuit saints is Cardinal Robert Bellarmine, SJ. So while we are counseled to avoid "ecclesiastical honors" this particular honor is almost always accepted for two reasons: first, it comes directly from the Holy Father; and second, it is an honor not simply for the man but a mark of a pontiff's gratitude for the Society of Jesus.

Congratulations to Cardinal-designate Becker, and also to my Ordinary, Cardinal-designate Timothy M. Dolan, who will certainly be a joyful addition to the College of Cardinals!

James Martin, SJ

http://www.americamagazine.org/blog/entry.cfm?blog_id=2&entry_id=4846

Comments1. I appreciate your opnniion, but do not share your enthusiasm for this consistory. The complexion- in all senses of the word - is disappointing given the state of the Church.

Posted By Dave Pasinski | Friday, January 06, 2012 10:27:42 AM

2. You failed to mention that Fr. Becker was the one who investigated his fellow Jesuit Jacques Dupuis. Kind of puts the appointment in a different light.

7. I totally agree with Commentator #1. Your joyful announcement makes me feel somewhat uneasy, Fr. Martin. I look to the Jesuits as intellectuals who do not suffer fools gladly.

Posted by Eileen Quin Gould

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Pellini at the helm of the Vatican Press and L’Osservatore Romano newspaper

VATICAN CITYVatican Insider

The Vatican Secretary of State, Tarcisio Bertone, has appointed the Salesian Sergio Pellini as head of the Vatican Press and the Holy See’s newspaper L’Osservatore

The glorious Vatican Polyglot Press has a new head and L’Osservatore Romano has a new director general. The Vatican Secretary of State, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone has appointed Salesian Father Sergio Pellini as new director general of the “Vatican Press Office and L’Osservatore Romano Newspaper”.

The two bodies which were merged into one some time ago, were directed by another Salesian cleric, Fr. Pietro Migliasso. According to the recent history of this Holy See institution, in 1909, the Vatican Printing Office and the Polyglot Press were merged to form the Vatican Polyglot Press, which changed names again in 1991, in conjunction with a general restructuring of the company started by John Paul II.

NEW DIRECTOR OF THE VATICAN PRESS VATICAN CITY

Vatican Information Service VATICAN CITY, 17 JAN 2012 (VIS) - Cardinal Secretary of State Tarcisio Bertone S.D.B. has appointed Fr. Sergio Pellini S.D.B. as director general of the Vatican Press

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Vatican used Wikipedia for new cardinals' biographies

BBC News

The Vatican has acknowledged that it used Wikipedia to produce biographies of 22 new cardinals that were sent out to journalists. The biographies were copied from the Italian version of the user-edited online encyclopedia, word for word in some cases, and without attribution. One clue was that many new cardinals were described as being "Catholic".

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Imagine a World Without Free Knowledge

For over a decade, we have spent millions of hours building the largest encyclopedia in human history. Right now, the U.S. Congress is considering legislation that could fatally damage the free and open Internet. For 24 hours, to raise awareness, we are blacking out Wikipedia. Learn more.

Wikipedia is offline today Wednesday in protest of SOPA and PIPA

The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) proposed by the U.S. House of Representatives and the Protect IP Act (PIPA) proposed by the U.S. Senate have the potential to severely cripple the free and open Internet. Democratic Underground is proud to join the many websites taking part in today's action to protest these bills by blacking out our site between the hours of 3am EST and 9pm EST.

To learn more about these devastating bills, and for information on how you can help to stop SOPA and PIPA, please visit the Electronic Frontier Foundation's Action Center.

STOP THE INTERNET BLACKLIST LEGISLATION

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page

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The Opus Dei wants to suppress Wikipedia and has persuaded The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) proposed by the U.S. House of Representatives and the Protect IP Act (PIPA) proposed by the U.S. Senate

NINE YEARS AGO, my husband took a photo of our daughter, when she was in kindergarten, with Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua.

She'd just returned from an excursion to the Philadelphia Zoo, where she'd gotten her face painted like a koala bear's. Afterward, she and my husband hit the St. Pat's Day Parade, where Bevilacqua was working the crowds on that unseasonably warm day.

The cardinal graciously posed with my daughter for a picture, and it's a winner (that's it, to the right). She's leaning into him, and his arm is curled around her waist. His other arm rests atop her hand. Their smiles are wonderful - his is warm and kind; hers impy.

We gave a framed copy of the photo to my parents, who loved Bevilacqua. We placed another on our piano, with other family photos.

The photo captured a sweet moment that symbolized how the church can make us feel safe in a world that seems irrational and full of danger.

A few years later, the first Philadelphia grand-jury report was released, detailing years of sexual abuse in the Philadelphia Archdiocese and Bevilacqua's central role in allowing it to persist.

I cried as I read the report. Then I removed the photo from the piano.

I was appalled that the grandfatherly prelate who'd been so kind to my daughter was also a bloodless lawyer willing to trade children's safety for the survival of his church.

But there it was, in a section titled "Overview of the Cover-Up by Archdiocesan Officials."

On page 35: Bevilacqua removed accused pedophile Pastor Nicholas Cudemo from St. Callistus parish only when victims threatened to sue both Bevilacqua and the Archdiocese. After the lawsuit was dismissed because the statute of limitations had lapsed, Bevilacqua allowed Cudemo to return to ministering.

On page 37: The cardinal had an aide tell accused predator Father Michael McCarthy that, despite the allegations against him, he could be appointed pastor at another parish after "an interval of time has passed." That new parish, according to the Cardinal's instructions, "would be distant from St. Kevin Parish so that the profile can be as low as possible and not attract the attention of the complainant."

Farther down the same page was a name I knew well: Father Edward DePaoli, a resident priest in my childhood parish, who was convicted on child-pornography charges.

Afterward, when the Archdiocese was trying to decide where to assign DePaoli, Bevilacqua wrote: "For the present time it might be more advisable for him to return to the active ministry in another diocese," which would "put a sufficient period between the publicity and reinstatement in the active ministry of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia."

The grand jury's overview of the cover-up concluded with this withering assessment:

"The abuses that Cardinal Bevilacqua and his aides allowed children to suffer - the molestations, the rapes, the lifelong shame and despair - did not result from failures or lapses, except of the moral variety. They were made possible by purposeful decisions, carefully implemented policies, and calculated indifference."

The late Bevilacqua was not a monster the way his sheltered predators were. He was something worse: a man who put his career, ambition and the perks of his job before all else, including his duty to protect the most vulnerable members of his flock.

In the case of sex abuse in the Roman Catholic Church, it has become pointless to ask, "How can an archdiocesan leader do such a thing?" Because the truth is, in a hierarchy where the sex-abuse cover-up has reached into the uppermost levels, no one is appointed a leader unless he can be counted on to do such a thing.

Terribly, Bevilacqua was one of those men. His wasn't a one-time failure of judgment with awful, but limited, consequences. It was cunning, ongoing and systemic, and it reverberated over years. The fallout is still with us.

Although death has spared Bevilacqua from the full earthly consequences of the cover-up he participated in, there is no escaping the higher authority he's now answering to.

One day, I hope to find enough charity in my heart to pray for his soul.

Just Awful: Hours Before Cardinal Bevilacqua Passed Away,SNAP’s Clohessy Suggested the Cleric May Be Faking His Illnesses

A new low for SNAP.

- February 2012 -

Less than 36 hours before Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua passed away from lengthy battles with cancer and dementia (he was 88 years old), David Clohessy, the national president of SNAP (Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests), suggested that the former archbishop of Philadelphia was faking his illnesses.

On Monday afternoon (1/30/12), Clohessy issued a media statement saluting Philadelphia Judge M. Teresa Sarmina for ruling that the frail and ailing cleric was "competent" to appear and testify at the upcoming clergy abuse trials in March. (More on that here.)

Clohessy wrote:

"We are grateful this judge is standing by her conviction that Bevilacqua will have to testify. For far too long, too many Catholic officials have feigned illnesses and memory lapses' (sic) to avoid facing tough questions, in open court, under oath, about their role …"

Good grief. This is truly awful, even by SNAP standards.

Indeed, we must demand justice and compassion for victims of clergy abuse. This is not optional.

However, SNAP continues to repeatedly and relentlessly present itself as a mean-spirited and malicious organization.

If a public apology were ever in order, this would be the time. However, it is a safe bet that SNAP will do no such thing. SNAP is too often cruel and merciless.

http://www.themediareport.com/feb2012/clohessy-snap-bevilacqua-passing.htm-- Dave Pierre is the author of the new book, Catholic Priests Falsely Accused: The Facts, The Fraud, The Stories. Dave is also the creator of TheMediaReport.com and is a contributing writer to NewsBusters.org, the popular media-bias blog of the Media Research Center.

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Cardinal Bevilacqua's CapabilitiesPHILADELPHIA (PA)Catholic Culture

By Dr. Jeff Mirus | February 01, 2012

You've probably already read in our news story that Cardinal Bevilacqua died yesterday at the age of 88, literally days after a Pennsylvania judge ruled once again that he was perfectly capable of giving testimony in the Philadelphia sexual abuse investigation. Considering the state of his health and the fact that he suffered from dementia, this in itself was remarkable.

But something even more remarkable was reported by David Pierre, author of two excellent books on priests falsely accused of sexual abuse. Pierre runs the Catholic Media Report, which seeks to expose anti-Catholic bias in the media.

Anyway, in this case he noticed that in a media statement for the victim advocacy group SNAP, president David Clohessy strongly implied that Cardinal Bevilacqua was faking his illness and memory loss to avoid giving testimony.

Overkill, perhaps? Later the next day, the Cardinal was dead.

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Bevilacqua’s videotaped testimony might now be heard at trial

PHILADELPHIA (PA)Philadelphia Inquirer

By Nancy PhillipsINQUIRER STAFF WRITER

A savvy move by prosecutors could mean that the late Cardinal Anthony J. Bevilacqua will speak from beyond the grave at the forthcoming criminal trial of three priests accused of endangering or abusing children, legal experts said Wednesday.

Bevilacqua, who died Tuesday at age 88, testified on videotape late last year about the church's handling of sex abuse allegations against priests in the Philadelphia Archdiocese during his 15-year-tenure as its leader.

The tape of the cardinal answering questions from prosecutors and defense lawyers may now be admitted at trial, experts say.

"It comes in," said James A. Cohen, a professor at Fordham law school and a former defense lawyer. Preserving Bevilacqua's testimony on tape should enable jurors to hear from him in his absence, he said.

PHILADELPHIA—Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua's death may not greatly alter the March trial of an aide charged with child endangerment for allegedly keeping predator-priests around children.

Bevilacqua's testimony was preserved on videotape late last year, since he was 88 and ailing. And though a judge found him competent to testify, his dementia would have been evident on the witness stand, lawyers said.

Still, his 10 combative appearances before a Philadelphia grand jury in 2003 and 2004 exposed church secrets about 63 accused priests that ultimately rocked the Roman Catholic hierarchy -- and the cardinal himself, who grew reclusive in retirement.

Philadelphia priests raped boys in church sacristies, stripped them nude and whipped them as part of a Passion Play, got them drunk and showed them pornography -- and remained on the job, the 2005 grand jury report said.

"Cardinal Bevilacqua, a loyal son and leader of the church for so many years -- it was his misfortune to be in a place where all that was revealed in a very glaring way," said Tom Roberts, editor at large of the National Catholic Reporter, a liberal-leaning newspaper for lay Catholics that first exposed the priest-abuse problem in the 1980s.

"Sexual abuse occurs everywhere, but I think the particular circumstances of the church that makes it a story that will not go away is it had the capacity to hide and protect so many for so long," he said.

Bevilacqua died in his sleep Tuesday night at his church residence near Philadelphia. That same day, his longtime secretary for clergy, Monsignor William Lynn, appeared in court for a pretrial hearing in his unprecedented criminal case.

Lynn, 61, is the first U.S. church official ever charged with child endangerment for allegedly shuffling problem priests from job to job. Philadelphia prosecutors say the church thereby fed predators a steady stream of children.

"(The) abuse was known, tolerated, and hidden by high church officials, up to and including the Cardinal himself," a second grand jury report on the Archdiocese of Philadelphia alleged last year.

Just hours before Bevilacqua died, the presiding judge in Lynn's trial called sexual abuse in the Catholic church "widespread." Defense lawyers call Lynn a scapegoat for the cardinal and other archdiocesan officials.

Bevilacqua fought bitterly with prosecutors in his often hostile grand jury appearances. He bristled when prosecutors, grilling him about the hundreds of complaints buried in "secret archives" at the archdiocese, called him "Mr. Bevilacqua."

"The very idea that a cardinal would get called before a grand jury was unheard of," said Duquesne University law professor Nicholas P. Cafardi, who served as counsel to the Pittsburgh archdiocese during Bevilacqua's tenure there in the late 1980s.

Bevilacqua's grand jury testimony became public last year as part of the discovery process in Lynn's case. It cannot be used at trial because he was not cross-examined, but his videotaped deposition, taken over two half-days in November, might be. Still, victim advocates hoped to hear him testify in person.

"With the passing of Cardinal Bevilacqua, we will never learn the full truth about clergy sex crimes and cover ups," said Barbara Blaine, president of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests.

No one was charged after the first grand jury because the complaints were years or decades old, and the statute of limitations had expired.

"Philadelphia had a very aggressive prosecutor who decided that regardless of the lack of statutes that would apply immediately, she wanted to know what went on. And what she discovered was a very, very ugly record," Roberts said, speaking of former District Attorney Lynne Abraham. "But I don't think Philadelphia necessarily was an outlier. We got to look at the unvarnished truth in a way that has not happened in many places."

Bevilacqua liked to point out that he was trained in both civil and church, or canon, law. The ninth of 11 children born to Italian immigrants in Brooklyn, he got his law degree at night while working with immigrants in the Brooklyn archdiocese, Cafardi said.

"I find that very inspiring. He literally became a civil lawyer ... in order to help the poor people whose rights he thought were being stepped on," Cafardi said. "This all speaks of a very, very admirable guy. He did many heroic things. But the way he handled the sex abuse allegations in Philadelphia -- as opposed to how he handled them in Pittsburgh -- is just a tragic flaw."

According to Cafardi, Bevilacqua moved accused priests in Pittsburgh to what he deemed "safe assignments," such as chaplancies in retirement homes for religious men and women.

In Philadelphia, he led diocesan priests who had mostly attended the same seminary, St. Charles Borromeo, where the cardinal lived and this week died.

"I've often speculated he became a captive of the Philadelphia clerical culture, a culture where it's inbred, and everybody watches everybody else's back," Cafardi said. "These are men who you've known for years, and you find it hard to believe that they're capable of doing what they're accused of doing."

Three priests and a former Catholic school teacher were indicted along with Lynn. They are all charged with rape. Three are charged with raping the same child, starting when he was a 10-year-old altar boy.

"It's a sad, sad, very mixed story because he was such an advocate for immigrants and, in many ways, the downtrodden. He apparently had a real pastor's touch in meeting with people individually and at parishes," Roberts said of the cardinal's legacy.

"I don't think any reading of his life can ignore what the documentation of the grand jury reports say about it. It would be really good for the church and the hierarchy to reflect on (that)."

Today marks the 10th anniversary when Boston Globe first published the priest pedophilia phenomenon in the United States of America. Cardinal Bernard Law of Boston was the star Archbishop of Boston who publicly admitted to aiding and abetting 80 pedophile priests transferring them from one parish to another. His own Bostonian priests and the laity forced him to resign in disgraced but John Paul II elevated him as the Archpriest of the ‘mother of all basilicas’ in Rome, the St. Mary Major. Ironically, it was in this basilica where the famous Battle of Lepanto was won because a pope prayed there from dawn till dusk. Obviously, the Rosary of John Paul II could not defeat the JP2 Army – John Paul II Pedophile Priests Army, named aptly after him because he had the longest papacy and he did absolutely nothing to protect and defend children, read our related article http://jp2m.blogspot.com/2011/10/rosary-could-not-defeat-jp2-army-john_06.html The greatest mystery in the Catholic Church today are not the Mysteries of the Rosary but rather the speedy sainthood of John Paul II and the perpetual cardinalship of Berbard Law both who covered-up pedophile priests during their lifetime, read our related article Heil Satanas JP2 Patron Saint of Pedophiles, Pederasts Rapists-Priests! John Paul II is the same yesterday and today-- he cannot protect children http://jp2m.blogspot.com/2011/05/heil-satanas-jp2-patron-saint-of.html.

John Paul II was already preparing for his (last) World Youth Day trip to North America in Toronto in July 2002 and he chose not to mention anything about priest pedophiles and his callous heart showed neither compassion nor compunction to the thousands of American children who were victims of this most heinous crime against children in the latter half of the 20th century. In life, John Paul II did not defend children, the most vulnerable, against his JP2 Priests generation, hence in death, he cannot defend them either. This beatification of John Paul II is the worst pathological lie of Benedict XVI and the Opus Dei and John Paul II is the biggest Golden Cow of the Opus Dei. The vision of Paris Arrow of St. Michael the Archangel tying the biggest millstone around the neck of John Paul II in that WYD stand true today – because he was unrepentant until his death in April 2, 2005, read our related article here The 9/11 Decade and the JP2 Millstone 9th anniversary of Paris Arrow's vision of the death of John Paul II at the World Youth Day http://jp2m.blogspot.com/2011/09/911-decade-and-jp2-millstones-9th.html

Opus Dei controlled the 27 years papacy of John Paul II and is therefore the foremost guilty party who aided and abetted and covered-up the John Paul II Pedophiles Rapists-Priests Army. Opus Dei wrote most of John Paul II’s books and writings and to ensure their perpetuity as “All things Catholic”, they want JP2 to be beatified and canonized now by Benedict XVI so as not to take any chances on other future popes. The FACE of Opus Dei is John Paul II and the PHANTOM Spirit of Opus Dei is their founder St. Josemaria Escriva, read our related article John Paul II, Patron of Pederasts and Opus Dei – analysis of Joaquin Navarro-Valls’ reasons for JP2 beatification at Opus Dei conference in Rome http://jp2m.blogspot.com/2011/04/john-paul-ii-patron-of-pederasts-and.html

BOSTON — Dozens of clergy sex abuse victims are gathering in Boston this weekend to mark a decade since the abuse crisis broke and devastated Catholics and their church nationwide.

The conference coincides with the 10th anniversary of the Jan. 6, 2002, publication of a Boston Globe article that prompted a stream of revelations about abusive priests and church leaders who failed to stop them, instead moving them between parishes.

About two-thirds of the 120 people signed up to attend the conference are clergy sex abuse victims, said Eva Montibello of the Massachusetts Citizens for Children, an abuse prevention group that helped plan the event.

The conference aims to prevent child sex abuse and increase its exposure, with steps such as encouraging victims to go public with their stories — including the painful details. The last 10 years has shown that can lead to revelations from other victims, Montibello said.

Clergy sex abuse victim Robert Costello, also a conference organizer, said they also want to celebrate progress helping victims heal and forcing the church to confront abuse.

"It's important to mark the change that has occurred," Costello said. "In the history of the church, which moves millennium per millennium, 10 years is lightning speed. And survivors did that. Supporters did that."

The conference, called the "10th anniversary Celebration & Conference: Confronting the Crimes & Cover-up of Sexual Abuse by the Boston Clergy," runs from Friday night through Sunday at a Boston hotel. Events include media and legal panels, talks on making the church more accountable and a play, "For Pete's Sake," written by and starring the victim of a pedophile priest.

On Sunday, participants will demonstrate at the Cathedral of the Holy Cross, the mother church of the Boston Archdiocese, continuing the regular protests there since the scandal broke.

Prominent clergy sex abuse victims' attorney Mitchell Garabedian, a speaker on the conference's legal panel, said the meeting will keep pressure on the Boston Archdiocese to do more.

The church has enacted various reforms in the last decade, but Garabedian said they largely amount to hollow gestures.

Clergy sex abuse advocates say too few church leaders and abusers have been held criminally accountable, and they're pushing for changes in statute of limitations laws. Such laws can prevent prosecutions if the alleged abuse was too far in the past.

Advocates also say a list of 159 accused priests, released this year by the Boston Archdiocese, left off dozens of clerics.

In five pages of reflections on the crisis, released this week, Boston Cardinal Sean O'Malley said the crisis will never really end and the church must continually seek forgiveness.

But he also pointed to progress, including settling 800 claims of abuse, training 300,000 children and 175,000 adults to spot and prevent abuse and $7 million spent to provide counseling and medication for victims.

Catholic League president Bill Donohue said Thursday that the church has a better record than any other institution fighting child sex abuse, but some victims won't ever be satisfied.

In a release headlined "Boston Victims Bask in Misery," Donahue said, "It's time for some straight talk: these people don't want to move on, and that's because they have too much invested in maintaining their victim status."

Costello, 50, said he was raped for years as a child by Rev. John Cotter, who he said would digitally penetrate him in the shallow end of a swimming pool under the guise of teaching him to swim. That left him in such pain, he couldn't sit on bus rides home from the pool, he said.

Abuse victims don't want to bask in the past — they wish it never happened, and it's often led to personal, financial and drug problems, he said. But the conference can recognize that many people have been able to come forward and start dealing with their pain in the last decade, while also bringing change to the church.

"We forced them to take a look at it. And it went global," Costello said. "We need to celebrate that."

James Carroll Reflects On The 10th Anniversary Of The Catholic Sex Abuse Scandal

Ten years ago Friday the Boston Globe published the first in a series of reports on a shocking pattern of clergy sexual abuse within the Catholic Church. That first story revealed how then-Boston Cardinal Bernard Law repeatedly transferred the Rev. John Geoghan from parish to parish, despite numerous reports of sexual abuse by Geoghan.

We mark the sad anniversary with Boston Globe columnist James Carroll. As a former priest, Carroll has written about the crisis with singular passion and clarity.

The Archdiocese of Boston has settled approximately 800 clergy sexual abuse claims, is providing care to about 300 abuse survivors at any given time, and has given anti-abuse training to nearly half a million children and adults, Cardinal Sean O’Malley said in a report issued today outlining the church’s response in the wake of the scandal that first broke 10 years ago this month.

But critics said they were unimpressed. “To this point, the church has failed miserably, miserably, miserably,” said Bernie McDaid, 55, of Peabody, who was abused in the late 1960s in Salem.

“Nothing has been done but whatever the court has made them do,” McDaid said.

O’Malley also said in his report that the church had strengthened its training standards for priests and made the candidate screening process “the strongest possible, with particular attention to any issues related to child safety.” The church conducts more than 60,000 criminal background checks a year on priests, teachers, volunteers, and other people working with children, according to the report, “Ten Years Later – Reflections on the Sexual Abuse Crisis in the Archdiocese of Boston.” ...

Terence McKiernan, president of BishopAccountability.org, also assailed O’Malley’s statements. “I’m very underwhelmed,” McKiernan said, adding that the cardinal “basically recycles the usual claims that we’ve heard a lot already, that they’ve experienced a learning curve, that they really didn’t understand the situation.”

Although criminal background checks of clergy and increased educational awareness about abuse are positive developments, McKiernan said, ‘it shows not so much that the church wants to do the right things here, but that they’ve been forced to do the right thing.”

The clergy sex abuse scandal first broke on Jan. 6, 2002, when a Globe article disclosed how O’Malley’s predecessor as cardinal, Bernard F. Law, had repeatedly transferred a priest from parish to parish as reports of sexual abuse arose. The scandal sparked a flood of lawsuits and investigations, spreading across the nation and then worldwide, rocking the Catholic church.

Click here to read a Globe interview with O’Malley in which he said the scandal has changed the church for all time.

About Me

Danish cartoonist (of Mohammed) drew John Paul II holding up robes of altar boys to expose their BUTTS to SATIATE his bestial PAPAL JP2 Army - John Paul II Pedophile Priests Army who sodomized hundreds of thousands of little boys - with inscription - I am against homosexuality but for pedophilia. Read the vision of Paris Arrow on how Saint Michael the Archangel tied the giant millstone on John Paul II's neck at his last WYD in 2002 -- in the John Paul II Millstone post August 1, 2006. John Paul II's neck broke and Saint Michael threw him into a raging sea of fire... The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil
is for (enough) good men - and good women - to do (and say) nothing. Youths of today, do not be deceived by the pathological lies of the Pope and the Vatican. The Vatican own the Swiss Banks where all moneys from corrupt regimes are hidden and poor peoples and poor countries are therefore perpetually oppressed....ABOLISH ALL VATICAN CONCORDATS THAT USURP BILLIONS OF DOLLARS FROM COUNTRIES that are already BURIED IN DEBTS!!! EXTERMINATE VATICAN MAMMON BEAST -- read our NEW BLOG: POPE FRANCIS the CON-Christ. Pretender &Impostor of Jesus